Conventional networks have many user software applications. Software applications (i.e., Megaraid Storage Manager (MSM), Raid Web Console 2 (RWC 2), and Server Raid Storage Manager (SSM)) are tested with the same firmware across different operating systems (OS). A separate setup is used for an application for every operating system a software application is being tested on. Such testing incurs effort to setup the separate hardware. Several setups are needed for each operating system.
The certification of an internal storage device (i.e., an array card inside a server) is going to use a different hardware setup for each operating system. Different setups are used even though the array controller will respond the same for different input stimuli regardless of the operating system.
Conventional systems use a different test setup for each operating system. Such systems have the following disadvantages (i) high cost of equipment to certify an array card (due to the hardware duplication between different operating systems), (ii) hardware issues encountered when trying to certify an array controller firmware, and (iii) hardware variability (which is often verified during board start up), will impact array controller firmware certification schedules.
It would be desirable to implement a system to eliminate hardware duplication during application testing of an internal storage array across different operating systems.